Japan joins U.S., South Korean in training to ‘incapacitate’ North Korean threats, Blinken calls for release of imprisoned Americans in phone call with Russian counterpart.
1. Japan joined the U.S. and South Korea for a two-day naval drill on Monday, another in a series of large military exercises on the peninsula, the most recent involving a visiting U.S. aircraft carrier. The drills on land, in the air and at sea are the largest involving the U.S. and South Korea in five years. They included live-fire drills by the U.S. Army and its South Korean partners, flyovers by fighters and bombers and amphibious landings by South Korean and U.S. Marines.
2. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged his Russian counterpart, in a rare phone call between the diplomats since the Ukraine war, to immediately release a Wall Street Journal reporter who was detained last week as well as another imprisoned American, Paul Whelan, the State Department said Sunday. In the call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Blinken conveyed “grave concern” over the Kremlin’s detention of journalist Evan Gershkovich on espionage allegations, according to a State Department summary of the call. Blinken called for his immediate release.
3. Russia’s top counterterrorism body on Monday blamed Ukrainian intelligence agencies for the bombing attack that killed a well-known Russian military blogger who fervently supported Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Russian officials said Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, was killed Sunday as he was leading a discussion at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of St. Petersburg. Over 30 people were wounded by the blast, and 10 of them remain in grave condition, according to the authorities.
4. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says Finland will become the 31st member of the military alliance on Tuesday. “From tomorrow, Finland will be a full member of the alliance,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.Stoltenberg said that Turkey, the last country to have ratified Finland’s membership, will hand its official texts to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday as NATO foreign ministers gather in Brussels.
5. With a collective sense of humor unlike any other institution, the U.S. military brings its “A” game on April 1. Reports of another balloon overflight, recognition for a popular Marine Corps satirist and a new medal for those who “almost joined” the military posed the internet question, “Is this for real?”
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